News in Brief

Date: 15 April 2018 - 22:04

News ID: ۵۱۷۹۷

SYDNEY (Dispatches) -- More than 500 firefighters have been working in "very high temperatures" to tackle a wildfire which has threatened homes on the southwestern outskirts of Sydney.
As Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said the situation was "worsening", emergency warnings were placed in a number of suburbs along the Georges River.
Fire crews fought through the night as the flames burned about 1,000 hectares of bushland.
"This huge blaze has been fought in very high temperatures, very high winds, unseasonal conditions, and has been done so in a way which has seen, to date, no injuries and no serious damage to property," Turnbull said.
Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes on Saturday night, with the flames burning within metres of properties in Holsworthy and Wattle Grove. The fire has already burned out about 1,000 hectares of bushland.

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PYONGYANG (AP) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has met with a high-ranking Chinese diplomat in Pyongyang, amid a flurry of diplomacy following Kim's recent surprise visit to Beijing.
Song Tao, who heads the ruling Communist Party's International Department, led an art troupe to Pyongyang to attend an arts festival, according to China's Foreign Ministry.
Kim made an unannounced trip to Beijing last month ahead of potentially breakthrough meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Kim said during his meeting with Song on Saturday that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping "reached important consensus" in Beijing, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.

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TOKYO (AFP) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi Sunday began a visit to Japan described as a major step forward in improving frosty relations, as Tokyo tries to stay involved in a flurry of international diplomacy over North Korea.
Wang met his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono in talks expected to touch on economic relations, territorial disputes in the East China Sea and ways to push the North to give up its nuclear weapons.
"I would like to regard (Wang's visit) as a major step forward in our efforts towards improving Japan-China relations," Kono told Wang at the start of their meeting at the Iikura Guest House.
Wang said his visit was China's answer to "positive" messages and policies by Japan.
"We are also faced with some complex and sensitive elements," Wang said, a veteran Japan expert who is a former ambassador to Tokyo.
"But together with Japan's efforts... we would like to bring China-Japan relations back on a path of sustainable and normal development."

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PARIS (AP) -- French authorities say 63 people have been arrested and nine police officers injured as protests took place in two cities amid simmering anger at President Emmanuel Macron's labor law changes.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb denounced the violence and damage to stores and public buildings at the edges of Saturday's protests in Nantes in western France and Montpellier in the south.
Collomb called for calm as another protest is planned Sunday at Notre-Dame-des-Landes in western France.
Other protests Saturday around France were largely peaceful. Train workers were marching during on-and-off strikes over Macron's railway labor reform plan, strikes that have disrupted traffic nationwide.
Macron is going on national television Sunday night to explain his reforms to the French economy. He says he's making the country more competitive globally while workers fear losing job protections.

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YANGON (AFP) -- Myanmar's government said it repatriated the first family of Rohingya out of some 700,000 refugees who fled to Bangladesh to escape a brutal military campaign, despite UN warnings that a safe return is not yet possible.
The stateless Muslim minority has been massing in squalid Bangladesh camps since the Myanmar army launched a ruthless crackdown on the community in northern Rakhine state last August.
The UN says the campaign amounts to ethnic cleansing, but Myanmar has denied the charge, saying its troops targeted Rohingya militants.
Bangladesh and Myanmar were supposed to begin repatriation in January but the plan has been repeatedly delayed as both sides blame the other for a lack of preparation.
According to a Myanmar government statement posted late Saturday, one family of Rohingya refugees became the first to return earlier in the day.

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LONDON (Telegraph) -- Europe will see its first genetically engineered patients using a groundbreaking gene-splicing therapy this year after regulators approved trials.
The biotech company Crispr Therapeutics is hoping to cure the disease beta thalassaemia, a devastating blood disorder which reduces the production of haemoglobin, the protein which carries oxygen to cells.
Without sufficient oxygen, sufferers can be left with bone deformities, severe anaemia, slow growth, fatigue and shortness of breath.
The disease is caused by a genetic mutation in the HBB gene, but scientists are confident that they can alter the body’s code to fix the problem and restore healthy levels of haemoglobin.